Eastern Condors (

1987

)

Vietnam made it impossible for any rational man to believe in two of the great American myths: That the United States is physically invincible, and that the United States is morally infallible. Were America as invincible as it pretended, there's no way it would have lost a war against a third rate communist power; were it as moral as was previously believed then there wouldn’t be daily news-reports of atrocities and massacres. The fallout of these twin revelations means that Vietnam is a time forever tainted in American culture. Just compare the average Vietnam film to the average World War II film. Despite being a much bloodier conflict, WWII films run the gamut from hyper-realistic and frequently depressing works like Saving Private Ryan (1998) and Fury (2014), to zany blood-soaked cartoons like Inglorious Bastards (2009), to regular old action films like Where Eagles Dare (1968) and the Guns of Navarone (1961). Even sci-fi and horror WWII stories are deemed perfectly acceptable, despite the ostensible seriousness of the topic, which is why we get Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) and Frankenstein's Army (2013). By contrast Vietnam films are much more constrained, as Americans are still collectively traumatized by the two revelations the war brought in its wake. As a consequence nearly every Vietnam movie of any significance focuses on the (completely true) notion that war is hell, and that it dehumanizes those who participate in it. Just look at Full Metal Jacket (1987), Casualties of War (1989), Platoon (1986), The Deer Hunter (1978), and Apocalypse Now (1979) for a showcase of how an entire generation of American filmmakers were traumatized by the war. Even attempts to mine the war for dumb action still had to deal with the political and emotional fallout of the war, leading to strangely poetic scenes in the likes of First Blood Part II (1985). That film in particular tries to sooth the psychic wounds of the war and constantly reassures its audience that it's ok to root for American soldiers. American filmmakers of all political persuasions were left to operate under this burden throughout the 1980s. Luckily for us, Americans aren't the only ones who make movies.

Hong Kong films have a long tradition of borrowing from and improving upon foreign cinema. Normally, such films are direct copies of one particular film or franchise like The Super Inframan (1975) did with the Japanese Ultraman; occasionally they will borrow from two separate but thematically linked movies like Taxi Hunter (1993) did with Taxi Driver (1976) and Falling Down (1993). Eastern Condors, helmed by famed acrobat/stuntman/actor/director Sammo Hung, is far more ambitious. It freely borrows elements from virtually every American Vietnam movie, but also steals the premise from The Dirty Dozen (1967) for good measure. Since the Hong Kongese have no reason to feel guilt or fear from the Vietnam War, the set pieces of the American originals come through in Eastern Condors purged of their original pathos. Since there's no reason for Sammo Hung to be especially reverent about the film's events, he even allows the movie to elicit a few laughs from the viewers. I'm sure that some, more personally impacted by the tragedy of Vietnam or more sensitive to human misery, may find this offensive. You'd be right, but as I hopefully demonstrated above it is no more offensive than making goofy escapist entertainment based on WWII, a tradition that has been with us for decades. Treating Vietnam as somehow distinct from all other wars is born from a peculiarly American bias, and today's movie proves it.

The US has pulled out of Vietnam, but in a shockingly believable fuck-up, they have left behind a cache of missiles that will turns whoever finds them into a regional menace. With the war over, the US has no official assets to send in, so the brass settles on the age old tradition of using black opts supported by Hong Kongese prisoners. Only problem is the black opts elites are taken out by an aviation accident before they even touch ground so the mission is left in the considerably less able hands of the cannon fodder prisoners. To make matters worse, the top commanders never even bothered to tell Lieutenant Colonel Lam, the officer leading the prisoners, where they hell the missiles are stored. So he will have to rely on intel supplied by the female Cambodian resistance fighters he links up with on the ground. Fortunately, despite their motley appearance, the convicts assigned to Lam's command are a bonafide bunch of bad-asses, in particular Tung Ming-sun (director Sammo Hung himself, who has slimmed down considerably from his more rotund build and is now merely pudgy). Throughout the course of the film we'll see Tung Ming-sun crush his enemies in kung-fu style CQC, cut his way through a swath of swath of NVA troopers using a bowie knife he wields like a butterfly sword, and kill one particularly unlucky soldier with a leaf! Along the way they will pick up another bad-ass, a Vietnamese black marketeer named “Weasel.” Coincidentally his seemingly insane uncle is the only one who knows where the missiles are hidden. Getting any specifics out of him is guaranteed to be a chore.

Unfortunately, there is a traitor in their midst. One of the Cambodian resistance soldiers is actually a plant by the NVA commander, and is steadily feeding information back to her superiors. Consequently, the whole squadron is promptly ambushed and taken to a Russian Roulette loving prison camp that is functionally identical to the one from The Deer Hunter (1978). With a short, and thrilling escape, the prisoners-cum-soldiers-cum-PoWs are back on the lamb but their actions have drawn the ire of a NVA general. The general, as far as I can tell has no name (he's credited as the Giggling General), is one of the most ridiculous figure I've ever seen passed off as a genuine threat in an action movie. Not only does he constantly snort out a high-pitched chuckle regardless of the situation he's in, but he looks less like a hardened guerilla fighter and more like a Hong Kongese dandy. The fact that he turns into a skilled kung-fu master at the film's climax comes as a genuine surprise given how effete and helpless he's come across up to that point. That the giggling general is played by none other than Yuen Wah, the actor I previously praised for his menacing, serpentine figure in She Shoots Straight (1991), a feat that makes him all the more impressive. Plenty of actors can portray menacing figures, and many others can be ridiculous, but seldom is an actor able do both, and with such skill.

As the squad makes their journey into Vietnam, they loose members at a steady pace, starting right with the initial parachute drop. For the most part these deaths are treated reverently, and this creates one of the film's biggest problems. Sammo Hung is a master of comedy and action, but maudlin melodrama is sadly outside of his range as a filmmaker. Consequently, the weepy bits are uncomfortably close to the ridiculous moments, both in terms of proximity and also the way the actors portray them. Likewise, the internal tension of the squadron suffers quite a bit as a result of the director's inability to handle dramatic moments. On two separate occasions the troopers threaten to desert Lieutenant Colonel Lam's command, but rather than stage a coup they throw down their weapons and stomp off in a huff. As if wandering around the unfamiliar jungle in American military fatigues would be better if they were unarmed and alone. A group breaking off and marching for the border at top speed, while keeping their weapons and supplies I could understand, but this behaviour is just absurd. It's drama for the sake of drama, and doesn't even advance the plot. Maybe if the characters had been better established this would be compelling, but despite appropriating the plot from The Dirty Dozen (1967), Eastern Condors skips the entire training and recruitment sequence in favour of plunging the audience right into the action. Consequently we don't really know who most of these characters are, and it's difficult to care when they die or desert.

Fortunately, Eastern Condors has it where it counts: The action is bonkers. What's even better is that thrilling sequences come along at regular intervals, there's never any significant dead space where nothing exciting happens. The actors stick to what they are familiar with for the most part, and mix hectic gunplay with wuxia style CQC, with the occasional spectacular pyrotechnical effect thrown in for good measure. The action is rapid and thrilling, but never falls off the edge into incomprehensibility, like certain overly ambitious Western actions movies I could name. Of particular note is a scene where the squadron has to make their way across a heavily fortified bridge. The film pauses to explain the defenses of the bridge, before cutting into the squadron improvising a plan to get across. Because you know the position of the enemy troops and heavy guns, nothing in the sequence comes as a confusing curveball out of left field.

All this is fun, but Eastern Condors keeps its best action asset in reserve until the climax when the surviving soldiers square off with The Giggling General and his elite lieutenants. Here we get the film's only full-on kung-fu brawl. All the fights up till this point have been focused mostly on gunplay with a bit of CQC thrown in for good measure. The gunplay is good but nothing remarkable for a Hong Kong movie, but the hand to hand fight we're treated to at the end is remarkable not just for its artistry but also its sheer brutality, ending as it does with a grenade being force fed to one of the combatants! If that doesn't sell you on this movie, I don't know what will.